Nature Near London | Page 7

almost lost in red, or quite; here the grass has a soft, velvety look;
yonder it is hard and wiry, and again graceful and drooping. Here there
are bunches so rankly verdant that no flower is visible and no other tint
but dark green; here it is thin and short, and the flowers, and almost the
turf itself, can be seen; then there is an array of bennets (stalks which
bear the grass-seed) with scarcely any grass proper.
Every variety of grass--and they are many--has its own colour, and
every blade of every variety has its individual variations of that colour.
The rain falls, and there is a darker tint at large upon the field, fresh but
darker; the sun shines and at first the hue is lighter, but presently if the
heat last a brown comes. The wind blows, and immediately as the
waves of grass roll across the meadow a paler tint follows it.
A clouded sky dulls the herbage, a cloudless heaven brightens it, so that
the grass almost reflects the firmament like water. At sunset the rosy
rays bring out every tint of red or purple. At noonday, watch as
alternate shadow and sunshine come one after the other as the clouds
are wafted over. By moonlight perhaps the white ox-eyed daisies show
the most. But never will you find the mowing grass in the same field
looking twice alike.
Come again the day after to-morrow only, and there is a change; some

of the grass is riper, some is thicker, with further blades which have
pushed up, some browner. Cold northern winds cause it to wear a dry,
withered aspect; under warm showers it visibly opens itself; in a
hurricane it tosses itself wildly to and fro; it laughs under the sunshine.
There are thick bunches by the footpath, which hang over and brush the
feet. While approaching there seems nothing there except grass, but in
the act of passing, and thus looking straight down into them, there are
blue eyes at the bottom gazing up. These specks of blue sky hidden in
the grass tempt the hand to gather them, but then you cannot gather the
whole field.
Behind the bunches where the grass is thinner are the heads of purple
clover; pluck one of these, and while meditating draw forth petal after
petal and imbibe the honey with the lips till nothing remains but the
green framework, like stolen jewellery from which the gems have been
taken. Torn pink ragged robins through whose petals a comb seems to
have been remorselessly dragged, blue scabious, red knapweeds,
yellow rattles, yellow vetchings by the hedge, white flowering parsley,
white campions, yellow tormentil, golden buttercups, white
cuckoo-flowers, dandelions, yarrow, and so on, all carelessly sown
broadcast without order or method, just as negligently as they are
named here, first remembered, first mentioned, and many forgotten.
Highest and coarsest of texture, the red-tipped sorrel--a crumbling
red--so thick and plentiful that at sunset the whole mead becomes
reddened. If these were in any way set in order or design, howsoever
entangled, the eye might, as it were, get at them for reproduction. But
just where there should be flowers there are none, whilst in odd places
where there are none required there are plenty.
In hollows, out of sight till stumbled on, is a mass of colour; on the
higher foreground only a dull brownish green. Walk all round the
meadow, and still no vantage point can be found where the herbage
groups itself, whence a scheme of colour is perceivable. There is no
"artistic" arrangement anywhere.
So, too, with the colours--of the shades of green something has already

been said--and here are bright blues and bright greens, yellows and
pinks, positive discords and absolute antagonisms of tint side by side,
yet without jarring the eye. Green all round, the trees and hedges; blue
overhead, the sky; purple and gold westward, where the sun sinks. No
part of this grass can be represented by a blur or broad streak of colour,
for it is not made up of broad streaks. It is composed of innumerable
items of grass blade and flower, each in itself coloured and different
from its neighbour. Not one of these must be slurred over if you wish to
get the same effect.
Then there are drifting specks of colour which cannot be fixed.
Butterflies, white, parti-coloured, brown, and spotted, and light blue
flutter along beside the footpath; two white ones wheel about each
other, rising higher at every turn till they are lost and no more to be
distinguished against a shining white cloud. Large dark humble bees
roam slowly, and honey bees with more decided flight. Glistening
beetles, green and gold, run across the bare earth of the path, coming
from one crack in the